The present invention relates to a tool for removing the lids or covers from in-ground service boxes and for removing manhole covers and the like. More specifically, the invention relates to a multiuse manual tool that is particularly useful for removing such covers but which may have numerous other additional uses.
One of the common tasks performed by maintenance crews of utility companies is to open in-ground service boxes (also commonly referred to as vaults). The maintenance crews gain access to electrical cables, telephone wires, cable television cables and natural gas pipes through these vaults. The vaults are typically covered by lids that resemble manhole covers and that are secured by threads and by hold-down bolts. That is, the round cover has at least a partial external thread that cooperates with an internal thread on the mouth of the vault opening. The hold-down bolts prevent the cover from turning.
Today, maintenance crews out in the field open vault lids using customarily available tools. Such tools include a wrench socket and a socket wrench handle, as well as a crowbar, a claw hammer or even a screw driver. Maintenance workers typically arrive at a job site in a service truck, gather the customary tools from a tool box in the service truck. The workers search for a particular socket from among a set of sockets for turning different sizes of bolts and nuts. The workers then carry the tools to the vault lid in their pockets and hands. The amount of weight that a maintenance worker can carry is limited. Thus, maintenance crews do not typically carry an entire tool box to the vault lid.
Most of the lids of vaults for a particular utility company typically have the same size and type of hold-down bolts. For example, the hold-down bolts on the vault lids of a particular telephone company might have three-quarter-inch hexagonal bolt heads. Other companies, however, may utilize hold-down bolts with five-eighth-inch or one inch bolt heads.
Typically, a maintenance worker first kneels down to unscrew the hold-down bolts with a socket wrench. After the maintenance worker removes the hold-down bolts, he typically bends over to the ground and pries open the vault lid with a crowbar, claw hammer or screw driver. Then, still bent over, he grabs the lid with his hands and pulls it up and open. As this conventional method of removing vault lids involves bending over, grabbing the edge of the lid and pulling, it often results in back injuries.
Tools have been proposed in the past to assist such maintenance crews in removing lids. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,868,570 entitled “Tool for Opening Utility Vault Lids” describes a tool that includes an elongated handle with a socket wrench at one end and a hooked shaped pry tip on the other. While this prior art tool may be of some value, it is of no assistance with lids that also require them to be rotated in order to remove them.
As an added security feature, many more recent vault lids are also secured to the vault by a partial screw thread or bayonet arrangement. That is, when the circular lid is in place on the vault it must be rotated partially to be secured and to be removed from the same. Such lids include a pair of spaced apart recesses or depressions that are used to assist a worker in installing or removing the lid. The worker will normally use two different elongated objects and place one in each of the recesses. He or she will then securely hold the objects and rotate them around each other to turn the lid. This process is difficult to perform, particularly if soil or the like has entered the joint between the lid and the vault or if there has been even minor damage to the edge of the lid or vault.
Insofar as Applicant is aware, there are no tools available that can assist a worker in performing all of the steps necessary to install or remove a vault lid. While individual tools may be used, there is no single tool available that can accomplish the desired results.
There is, therefore, a need for a tool that can be used by a worker for installing and removing various types of vault lids and which is self contained and easy to utilize.